Guerrilla in the Mist
Friday, August 13, 2010 at 7:08PM
Giller

The route I chose to ride from Portland to Seattle was literally decided at the last minute. There is a traditional touring route that loops west to the coast and up the Olympic Peninsula; it seemed like the long way round. I didn't want to take the more direct route north as it would mean heavy highway traffic. Thus, I decided to head inland instead to take in the Columbia River Gorge, one of Oregon's main tourist attractions. Doing this would mean taking the mountainous route through the Cascades. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, I'm not sure which; this is not the route that cyclists take. There are not that many expedition tourers in this part of the world it seems. The standard practice for the tourer here is to avoid hills and I understand where they are coming from if they are not experienced cyclists.  However, as I love the agony of climbing and the ecstasy of descending I don't worry about such things. Touring is nowhere near as stressful or painful as racing so perhaps my perspective is slightly skewed.

This area is reasonably remote as the snowfall during the winter closes the roads, this means that towns along the way tend to be quite basic. Going this route would allow me to take in Mount Saint Helen's National Park and Mount Rainier National Park. These parks don't have through roads making them best explored on foot. Regardless, the snow-peaks are so big that you don't need to trek the actual parks themselves as skirting the parks allows you to still take in the views.

This leg of the trip introduced me to a few problems. The first is that I have just come out of South America where I was spoiled for 'amazing' scenery. In Portland people were telling me how 'amazing' the Columbia River Gorge is and while it is perfectly nice it is far from 'amazing'. Anyone who has seen the Iguazu Falls will understand what I mean when I say that I can't quite look at another waterfall again. Somehow tourist boards have managed to turn the merest of trickles off mountain-sides into 'major' tourist attractions and so the roads were thick with camera-snapping 'tourists'. These are photos I didn't bother to take. I don't mean that in a snobby way, I understand that I am very fortunate to have seen the things I have, it just means that I have to take everyone's view on things with a large pinch of salt. It is more the commercialisation of tourism that I find frustrating. Nature is exploited as a revenue-boosting mechanism where the creed is simply to find ways of boosting 'visitor numbers' so as to improve the local economy. This strips both people and nature of their integrity as we are both merely pawns in the capitalists' game. The result is that pleasant pieces of nature that are converted into 'tourist attractions' almost lose their soul. Visiting them becomes eerily similar to the shopping mall experience where people wander from shop to shop under a thick haze of subliminal stimuli that they are often not aware of. The whole experience just seems sadly vacant.

The second issue was that I was back at lower elevations and closer to the coast where humidity plays a factor. This would mean that I would have to carry a lot more water than I'm used to. In theory, I was sweating what I was l carrying in my dromedary-bag but each litre of water is an extra kilo on the back of the bike. You only notice differences in body-weight when you are in peak condition and are trying to eke top performance from your body for racing. Thus, the fact that I might sweat five kilos is immaterial when touring as the legs can still feel the weight of the water I'm carrying.

The third issue was that I'm back in a developed country and through various means we have managed to make life very expensive for ourselves. Anyone who has had the pleasure of walking around Wal-Mart or Dollar stores to experience the 'frugal future' that some North American economists are espousing can attest to the fact that it is still possible to live cheaply in America. However, the conundrum for me is that cheap food is not nutritious food. My motor is finely tuned at this stage so cheap food for fuel just doesn't work. As a person living off his savings, I'm all for living in the basement of society cutting coupons and scoring meal deals etc. (Become a 'club-card' member of every supermarket chain you visit ... the savings are ridiculous!)

The thrift theme continues in terms of accommodation. I have no problem paying up for hostels in cities; they usually have good locations, provide security for your belongings and can be a good way of meeting people. In the countryside where hostels don't exist then I'm more than cosy in my own tent. It has become my own space to get away from the toil of a travelling day and much like a bedroom it's interior is constant. So no matter where you are in the world the constancy of this internal space is somewhat therapeutic. The problem is that camping can be expensive. In national parks it tends not to be so bad and if you are travelling well-beaten biker/hiker routes it can be quite cheap as the States makes it affordable for people coming into Parks on their own steam. However, if you are off the beaten-path, have no-one to share the cost of a site with and end up in a commercial camp-ground then you are being asked to pay the same price as a hostel for a patch of grass. This intuitively does not make any sense. If I camped for a month I'd be paying $750 to live outside. I could rent a really nice place in a cool part of Portland for that much. Thus, I try to wild-camp where possible. Finding a place to wild-camp is a bit of an art but if you don't do long days and can start early it is not too difficult. The trick is to stock up on food and supplies in a town along the way and then head back into the countryside to find a quiet spot for the night to set up your tent. The benefit is that it is free. The cost is that it can be a little stressful if you can't find somewhere suitable, you are losing light and you don't have a back-up camp-site on your route. A heavily-laden touring bike can make parts of the bush inaccessible, so it generally can take time unless you do short days and happen upon something in the middle of your ride. This only works if you can make up tomorrow what you didn't do today. The essence is that you are camping in the middle of nature and it is quite thrilling when you find nice scenic spots. The trick is to make sure that nobody ever knows that you are there. Unfortunately, perfectly good spots to camp are often in places where it is not permitted. It could be a private farm or a day-use recreation site in a National Park. I am pretty sure that most farmers would be pretty cool to let you camp on their land if you asked, however, farms are automated these days so often there is no-one to ask. In terms of camping in the Cascades, it proved difficult as it is summer-time and the undergrowth is very thick. The forests are dense and being mountainous flat ground can be hard to find. The best spots tend to be places where man has already scarred the land, be it where trees were felled for power pylons or places where loggers or people have cut away the growth to park vehicles off the road. When camping in the wild one needs to be aware of the wild-life around you. Unfortunately the 'wildest' animal out there is man. It is very important to be well hidden from view of the road because humans can be unpredictable. You could be accidentally on somebody's land in a country where guns are an acceptable means of self-defence. In addition, people can be drunk, on drugs or just generally deranged that they might cause you problems. By and large people are fine but you don’t want to startle either them or you.

The term guerrilla-camping is used in North America. This is synonymous with wild-camping, however, I feel that it more suitably describes camping in places where you know you shouldn't or are uncomfortable. This could entail trespassing, which I don't advocate, or more likely camping on state lands where there may or may not be issues. The usual protocol is to set-up under the cover of darkness and to be gone at first light such that no-one could possibly find you. In places such as Washington State where people are very outdoorsy there is not likely to be any problem but it does not necessarily detract from the adrenaline of the situation. The adrenaline tends to fade as soon as you are back in your 'bedroom'; reading, watching TV shows on your laptop or humming to tunes ... all the usual things people do before going to sleep.

The photos below help convey the ride. As you will note, the weather in Washington State is far from wet as most people think. They tend to get two months of very settled weather during the summer and then experience more drizzly mist than rain in the other months.

Seattle next up.

Marco

Columbia Riverwild-camp Mount St Helens National Park         

Mount St Helen's Volcano

the jackpot - a wild-camp I found where hunters seem to pitch now and again. It even had it's own box toilet in the woods

bottom right there is a crashed pick-up truck I had to phone in - only a cyclist could see it

beautiful wooded terrainI thought it was Mount Adams but it looks like Mount Rainier ... lots of free-standing snow peaks etc

Mount Rainierbath-time in Lake Alder   

guerilla or wild-camp near Alder? This was behind road-signage but I found recent grass clippings near the tent in the morning, which suggested I was on private land. A barking dog in this scenario would have been a disaster       

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